scholarly journals Along-arc variation in short-term slow slip events caused by 3-D fluid migration in subduction zones

2017 ◽  
Vol 122 (2) ◽  
pp. 1434-1448 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Morishige ◽  
Peter E. van Keken
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Warren-Smith ◽  
Bill Fry ◽  
Laura Wallace ◽  
Enrique Chon ◽  
Stuart Henrys ◽  
...  

<p><span>The occurrence of slow slip events (SSEs) in subduction zones has been proposed to be linked to the presence of, and fluctuations in near-lithostatic fluid pressures (P</span><sub><span>f</span></sub><span>) within the megathrust shear zone and subducting oceanic crust. In particular, the 'fault-valve' model is commonly used to describe occasional, repeated breaching of a low-permeability interface shear zone barrier, which caps an overpressured hydrothermal fluid reservoir. In this model, a precursory increase in fluid pressure may therefore be anticipated to precede megathrust rupture. Resulting activation of fractures during slip opens permeable pathways for fluid migration and fluid pressure decreases once more, until the system becomes sealed and overpressure can re-accumulate. While the priming conditions for cyclical valving behaviour have been observed at subduction zones globally, and evidence for post-megathrust rupture drainage exists, physical observations of precursory fluid pressure increases, and subsequent decreases, particularly within the subducting slab where hydrothermal fluids are sourced, remain elusive. </span></p><p><span>Here we use earthquake focal mechanisms recorded on an ocean-bottom seismic network to identify changes in the stress tensor within subducting oceanic crust during four SSEs in New Zealand’s Northern Hikurangi subduction zone. We show that the stress, or shape ratio, which describes the relative magnitudes of the principal compressive stress axes, shows repeated decreases prior to, and rapid increases during the occurrence of geodetically documented SSEs. We propose that these changes represent precursory accumulation and subsequent release of fluid pressure within overpressured subducting oceanic crust via a ‘valving’ model for megathrust slip behaviour. Our observations indicate that the timing of slow slip events on subduction megathrusts may be controlled by cyclical accumulation of fluid pressure within subducting oceanic crust.</span></p><p><span>Our model is further supported by observations of seismicity preceding a large SSE in the northern Hikurangi Margin in 2019, captured by ocean-bottom seismometer</span><span>s</span><span> and </span><span>absolute </span><span>pressure </span><span>recorders.</span> <span>O</span><span>bservations of microseismicity </span><span>during this period </span><span>indicate that a stress state conducive to vertical fluid flow was present in the downgoing plate prior to SSE initiation, before subsequently returning to a</span><span> down-dip</span><span> extensional state following the SSE. We propose this precursory seismicity is indicative of fluid migration towards the interface shear zone from the lower plate fluid reservoir, which may have helped triggering slip on the megathrust. </span></p><p><span>We also present preliminary results of a moment tensor study to investigate spatial and temporal patterns in earthquake source properties in SSE regions along the Hikurangi Margin. In particular, earthquakes near Porangahau – a region susceptible to dynamic triggering of tremor and where </span><span>shallow </span><span>SSEs occur every 5 years or so – exhibit distinctly lower double couple components than elsewhere along the margin. We </span><span>attribute this to elevated fluid pressures within the crust here, which is consistent with recent observations of high seismic reflectivity from an autocorrelation study. Such high fluid pressure may control the broad range of seismic and aseismic phenomena observed at Porangahau. </span></p>


2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (23) ◽  
pp. 6079-6083
Author(s):  
Yuichi Kitagawa ◽  
Naoji Koizumi

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (11) ◽  
pp. 4006-4020 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. K. Mitchell ◽  
Y. Fialko ◽  
K. M. Brown

Author(s):  
Bunichiro Shibazaki ◽  
Shuhui Bu ◽  
Takanori Matsuzawa ◽  
Hitoshi Hirose

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathilde Radiguet ◽  
Ekaterina Kazachkina ◽  
Louise Maubant ◽  
Nathalie Cotte ◽  
Vladimir Kostoglodov ◽  
...  

<p>Slow slip events (SSEs) represent a significant mechanism of strain release along several subduction zones, and understanding their occurrence and relations with major earthquake asperities is essential for a comprehensive understanding of the seismic cycle. Here, we focus on the Mexican subduction zone, characterized by the occurrence of recurrent large slow slip events (SSEs), both in the Guerrero region, where the SSEs are among the largest observed worldwide, and in the Oaxaca region, where smaller, more frequent SSEs occur. Up to now, most slow slip studies in the Mexican subduction zone focused either on the detailed analysis of a single event, were limited to a small area (Guerrero or Oaxaca), or were limited to data before 2012 [e.g.1-4]. In this study, our aim is to build an updated and consistent catalog of major slow slip events in the Guerrero-Oaxaca region.</p><p>We use an approach similar to Michel et al. 2018 [5]. We analyze the GPS time series from 2000 to 2019 using Independent Component Analysis (ICA), in order to separate temporally varying sources of different origins (seasonal signals, SSEs and afterslip of major earthquakes). We are able to isolate a component corresponding to seasonal loading, which matches the temporal evolution of displacement modeled from the GRACE data. The sources (independent components) identified as tectonic sources of deep origin are inverted for slip on the subduction interface. We thus obtain a model of the spatio-temporal evolution of aseismic slip on the subduction interface over 19 years, from which we can isolate around 30 individual slow slip events of M<sub>w </sub>> 6.2.</p><p> The obtained catalog is coherent with previous studies (in terms of number of events detected, magnitude and duration) which validates the methodology. The observed moment-duration scaling is close to M<sub>0</sub>~T<sup>3 </sup>as recently suggested by Michel [6] for Cascadia SSEs, and our study extends the range of magnitude considered in their analysis. Finally, we also investigate the spatio-temporal relations between the SSEs occurring in the adjacent regions of Guerrero and Oaxaca, and their interaction with local and distant earthquakes.</p><p> </p><p>References:</p><ol><li>Kostoglodov, V. et al. A large silent earthquake in the Guerrero seismic gap, Mexico. Geophys. Res. Lett <strong>30</strong>, 1807 (2003).</li> <li>Graham, S. et al. Slow Slip History for the Mexico Subduction Zone: 2005 Through 2011. Pure and Applied Geophysics 1–21 (2015). doi:10.1007/s00024-015-1211-x</li> <li>Larson, K. M., Kostoglodov, V. & Shin’ichi Miyazaki, J. A. S. The 2006 aseismic slow slip event in Guerrero, Mexico: New results from GPS. Geophys. Res. Lett. <strong>34</strong>, L13309 (2007).</li> <li>Radiguet, M. et al. Slow slip events and strain accumulation in the Guerrero gap, Mexico. J. Geophys. Res. <strong>117</strong>, B04305 (2012).</li> <li>Michel, S., Gualandi, A. & Avouac, J.-P. Interseismic Coupling and Slow Slip Events on the Cascadia Megathrust. Pure Appl. Geophys. (2018). doi:10.1007/s00024-018-1991-x</li> <li>Michel, S., Gualandi, A. & Avouac, J. Similar scaling laws for earthquakes and Cascadia slow-slip events. Nature <strong>574, </strong>522–526 (2019) doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1673-6</li> </ol><p> </p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Costantino ◽  
Mauro Dalla Mura ◽  
David Marsan ◽  
Sophie Giffard-Roisin ◽  
Mathilde Radiguet ◽  
...  

<p>The deployment of increasingly dense geophysical networks in many geologically active regions on the Earth has given the possibility to reveal deformation signals that were not detectable beforehand. An example of these newly discovered signals are those associated with low-frequency earthquakes, which can be linked with the slow slip (aseismic slip) of faults. Aseismic fault slip is a crucial phenomenon as it might play a key role in the precursory phase before large earthquakes (in particular in subduction zones), during which the seismicity rate grows as well as does the ground deformation. Geodetic measurements, e.g. the Global Positioning System (GPS), are capable to track surface deformation transients likely induced by an episode of slow slip. However, very little is known about the mechanisms underlying this precursory phase, in particular regarding to how slow slip and seismicity relate.</p><p>The analysis done in this work focuses on recordings acquired by the Japan Meteorological Agency in the Boso area, Japan. In the Boso peninsula, interactions between seismicity and slow slip events can be observed over different time spans: regular slow slip events occur every 4 to 5 years, lasting about 10 days, and are associated with a burst of seismicity (Hirose et al. 2012, 2014, Gardonio et al. 2018), whereas an accelerated seismicity rate has been observed over decades that is likely associated with an increasing shear stress rate (i.e., tectonic loading) on the subduction interface (Ozawa et al. 2014, Reverso et al. 2016, Marsan et al. 2017).</p><p>This work aims to explore the potential of  Deep Learning  for better characterizing the interplay between seismicity and ground surface deformation. The analysis is based on a data-driven approach for building a model for assessing if a link seismicity – surface deformation exists and to characterize the nature of this link. This has potentially strong implications, as (small) earthquakes are the prime observable, so that better understanding the seismicity rate response to potentially small slow slip (so far undetected by GPS) could help monitoring those small slow slip events. The statistical problem is expressed as a regression between some features extracted from the seismic data and the GPS displacements registered at one or more stations.</p><p>The proposed method, based on a Long-Short Term Memory (LSTM) neural network, has been designed in a way that it is possible to estimate which features are more relevant in the estimation process. From a geophysical point of view, this can provide interesting insights for validating the results, assessing the robustness of the algorithms and giving insights on the underlying process. This kind of approach represents a novelty in this field, since it opens original perspectives for the joint analysis of seismic / aseismic phenomena with respect to traditional methods based on more classical geophysical data exploration.</p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederique Rolandone ◽  
Jean-Mathieu nocquet ◽  
Patricia Mothes ◽  
Paul Jarrin ◽  
Mathilde Vergnolle

<p>In subduction zones, slip along the plate interface occurs in various modes including earthquakes, steady slip, and transient accelerated aseismic slip during either Slow Slip Events (SSE) or afterslip. We analyze continuous GPS measurements along the central Ecuador subduction segment to illuminate how the different slip modes are organized in space and time in the zone of the 2016 Mw 7.8 Pedernales earthquake. The early post-seismic period (1 month after the earthquake) shows large and rapid afterslip developing at discrete areas of the megathrust and a slow slip event remotely triggered (∼100 km) south of the rupture of the Pedernales earthquake. We find that areas of large and rapid early afterslip correlate with areas of the subduction interface that had hosted SSEs in years prior to the 2016 earthquake. Areas along the Ecuadorian margin hosting regular SSEs and large afterslip had a dominant aseismic slip mode that persisted throughout the earthquake cycle during several years and decades: they regularly experienced SSEs during the interseismic phase, they did not rupture during the 2016 Pedernales earthquake, they had large aseismic slip after it. Four years after the Pedernales earthquake, postseismic deformation is still on-going. Afterslip and SSEs are both involved in the postseimsic deformation. Two large aftershocks (Mw 6.7 & 6.8) occurred after the first month of postseismic deformation in May 18, and later in July 7 2016 two other large aftershocks (Mw 5.9 & 6.3) occurred, all were located north east of the rupture. They may have triggered their own postseismic deformation. Several seismic swarms were identified south and north of the rupture area by a dense network of seismic stations installed during one year after the Pedernales earthquakes, suggesting the occurrence of SSEs. Geodetically, several SSEs were detected during the postseismic deformation either in areas where no SSEs were detected previously, or in areas where regular seismic swarms and repeating earthquakes were identified. The SSEs may have been triggered by the stress increment due to aftershocks or due to afterslip.</p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Víctor Cruz-Atienza ◽  
Josué Tago ◽  
Carlos Villafuerte ◽  
Meng Wei ◽  
Ricardo Garza-Girón ◽  
...  

Abstract Triggering of large earthquakes on a fault that hosts aseismic slip or, conversely, triggering of slow slip events (SSE) by passing seismic waves involves seismological questions with major hazard implications. Just a few observations plausibly suggest that such interactions actually happen in nature. In this study we show that three recent devastating earthquakes in Mexico are likely related to SSEs, describing a cascade of events interacting with each other on a regional scale via quasi-static and/or dynamic perturbations. Such interaction seems to be conditioned by the transient memory of Earth materials subject to the “traumatic” stressing produced by the seismic waves of the great Mw8.2 Tehuantepec earthquake, which strongly disturbed the aseismic beating over a 650 km long segment of the subduction plate interface. Our results imply that seismic hazard in large populated areas is a short-term evolving function of seismotectonic processes that are often observable.


2021 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Takahiro Tsuyuki ◽  
Akio Kobayashi ◽  
Reiko Kai ◽  
Takeshi Kimura ◽  
Satoshi Itaba

AbstractAlong the Nankai Trough subduction zone, southwest Japan, short-term slow slip events (SSEs) are commonly detected in strain and tilt records. These observational data have been used in rectangular fault models with uniform slip to analyze SSEs; however, the assumption of uniform slip precludes the possibility of mapping the slip distribution in detail. We report here an inversion method, based on the joint use of strain and tilt data and evaluated in terms of the Akaike’s Bayesian information criterion (ABIC), to estimate the slip distributions of short-term SSEs on the plate interface. Tests of this method yield slip distributions with smaller errors than are possible with the use of strain or tilt data alone. This method provides detailed spatial slip distributions of short-term SSEs including probability estimates, enabling improved monitoring of their locations and amounts of slip.


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